Light makes the world go around, but it's a more recent invention than you might think. Thomas Edison didn't invent the practical incandescent light bulb until 1879, and before that, homes and cities relied on more traditional gas and match lamps to get the job done.
There were no street lights, no traffic lights, and even once those were installed, operators were necessary to help them work. Here are 18 photos from the early days of light, and the different ways we've used it.
1
Cathedral of Light, Nuremberg 1937. One of the first light shows, unfortunately for a bad cause.
2
Nikola Tesla sends 500,000 volts of electricity through his body to light a simple lightbulb as he spins it around above his head. 1898.
3
The first production of usable nuclear electricity occurred on December 20, 1951, when four light bulbs were lit with electricity generated from the EBR-1 reactor.
4
The first traffic signal in NYC, Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, 1922.
5
A 74-year-old Thomas Edison tests the packaging for his most famous invention, the incandescent light bulb. 1922.
6
Colorized 1900's, Nikola Tesla’s wireless electricity.
7
Police directing traffic in Birmingham, Alabama, before traffic lights were installed.
8
Lamplighter in London, 1935.
9
1893 Chicago World's Fair, lighting by Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, photo by William Henry Jackson, from the Field Museum archive.
10
In 1961, Goodyear released a tire that used mounted light bulbs in the wheel rim to make the tires glow in the dark but they never went into production.
11
UV lamp "light baths" were given to Soviet kids in an attempt to supply them with vitamin D during the winter months. 1987.
12
Park Ranger demonstrating "torch throwing" at Mammoth Cave National Park in the 1960s. This was a technique used before electrical lights were abundant in the pitch black passages to highlight features to guests in the way that you would today with a flashlight.
13
1947, December, traffic lights being made in Shreveport, Louisiana, for shipment around the world.
14
One of the first of seven electric street lights installed in LA in 1882. Each mast carries three carbon-arc lamps of three thousand candle-power. It stood 150 feet tall.
15
This historical photo, looking northward from 45th St., shows the classic bright lights of Times Square in 1921, an ongoing illumination of the city since the first electrified advertisement in 1904.
16
Lighting the Olympic flame for the first time since the ancient Olympic Games. Amsterdam, 28th of July 1928.
17
USS Kearsarge, illuminated with electric lights, while visiting Portsmough, England in July 1903.
18
"The Berlin Wall." You can still see lamps of Western Berlin, top, and dimmer of Eastern Berlin, bottom, caused by the lower-quality lighting used in the East. Taken by astronaut Chris Hadfield from ISS in 2013.
